Haskayne-led University of Calgary Team Takes 3rd in the 2016 Rotman International Trading Competition
The Rotman International Trading Competion (RITC) hosted 52 teams from Feb 18-20, 2016 in Toronto. The University of Calgary beat all the other 18 Canadian teams, as well as 31 international teams to take 3rd place in the competition.
Although the Calgary team comprised general business and engineering undergraduate and graduate students, it beat teams from specialist graduate and undergraduate financial engineering programs at top schools like Berkeley, Chicago, New York University, Columbia, Carnegie Mellon, and Washington University in St Louis.
A press release is available.
The University of Calgary Gold Team consisted of:
- Joel Adams (Schulich Engineering BSc)
- Carter Ensign (Haskayne BComm)
- Georg Jalkotzy (Haskayne BComm and Economics)
- Branden Lewis (Haskayne BComm)
- Chase MacDougall (Haskayne BComm)
- Ranjot Sahdhu (Haskayne MBA)
L to R: George Hart (Assistant coach), Joel Adams, Branden Lewis, Ranjot Sandhu, Chase MacDougall, Georg Jalkotzy, Carter Ensign, Gordon (Coach)
A light moment in the Murray Edwards Trading Lab, while preparing for the competition.
Team Gold receives at the RITC Award Ceremony atop the CN Tower.
Two Teams Selected, But Only One Could Go
We selected two teams for RITC 2016. After selecting our teams, we learned that the RITC competition only had room for one team, so, sadly, only the Gold team attended the competition. But, several members of the Red team continued practicing with the Gold team to push them ahead.
Red Team
- Catalina Cuzzani (Economics BA)
- Caleb Kostynuik (Haskayne BComm)
- Felica Specht (Haskayne BComm)
- Jonathan Leong (Haskayne BComm)
- Jeremy Xu (Haskayne MBA)
- Tom Widdowson (Haskayne BComm)
Congratulations to all of these hard-working and successful traders!
Intense Competition
The competition in 2016 was particularly intense, as many teams (like Calgary) had prepared extensively to secure a high placement in the competition. For example, Team Calgary earned a score of 45.7, and could have earned second place if it had scored over 45.9.
Of the six different trading cases in the competition, Team Calgary won the S&P Capital IQ Equity Valuation case, placed third in the BP Commodities case, and took fourth in the new Credit Risk case.
Team Calgary members were readily identifiable by their Gold trading jackets, and earned a lot of respect from their fellow competitors, as well as many new friends.
Team Practice Started in September 2015
Team selection started with the BP Canada Trading Competition that we held in the Haskayne School in October 2015. Practice continued weekly in the Murray Edwards Trading and Finance Lab, and the teams were selected in December 2015.
We are very grateful to the assistance of BP Canada in acquiring a licence to use the RIT Software for the October competition and subsequent practice. All the top teams at RITC trained on this software prior to the competition, so having the software was critical to our success.